Presence, immediacy and participation lie at the forefront of some of the most influential art of the past fifty years, yet performance art remains mysterious to many of us. Written for the interested but uninitiated, Performance Art: A Guided Tour offers an accessible guide to the roots, landmarks, and shifting terrain of live art. From its beginnings in conceptual art in the 1950s through the 'media generation' of the 1960s to Marina Abramovic and the live art of today, this book introduces the history and agendas of the medium. Performance art practitioner and scholar Peter Bond explores the origins of performance art and how its effect on us can be usefully interpreted. Through the lenses of art history and performance theory, close studies of artists and thinkers chart the evolution of performance art and provide a critical framework with which to begin to understand our encounters with it. Including a DIY guide to becoming a performance artist, this book locates performance art within shifting circumstances and conflicting discourses, debating different approaches to understanding it.
Enlightening and surprising, Performance Art: A Guided Tour enables the reader to navigate the terra incognita of one of the most controversial modern art forms.